60 IN LOWER FLORIDA WILDS 



and scouring out their rocky bottoms. These pas- 

 sages are drains for the surplus water of the Ever- 

 glades and of the low lands back of the archipelago. 



As one penetrates the group towards the main- 

 land these tideways become shallower and nar- 

 rower; the low-lying land rises very slightly and 

 occasional saw palmettos and cabbage palms 

 appear. Ficus aurea, Ilex cassine, and wax myrtle 

 are soon after met and finally, still farther on, are 

 low prairies with scattered pine and cypress. So 

 the Ten Thousand Islands gradually merge into 

 the mainland like a dissolving film change and it 

 is difficult to say just where one ends or the other 

 begins. 



I am told by those who know that there is no 

 natural land in the entire region which rises above 

 the level of an extremely high tide. I have been 

 over much of it and my observation confirms the 

 statement. Just north of Cape Sable for seven 

 or eight miles fronting the open sea, the dense 

 lofty mangrove forest stands like a solid green 

 wall seventy or eighty feet high. The Gulf of 

 Mexico bathes the roots of this wonderful growth 

 and although its great swells roll in against them 

 over an open reach of a thousand miles they do 



